MCSA launches national day of mining H&S

For more than 20 years, the mining industry, together with its tripartite partners which include government and labour, have been working hard to improve the sector’s safety performance. As a result of these collective efforts, the industry saw an 88% improvement in fatality rates between 1993 and 2016.

However, since 2017 the industry has seen a regression in safety performance. This regression has been deeply saddening and concerning to all mining industry stakeholders. This year, the industry has experienced 58 fatalities due to incidents, compared with 51 at the same date in 2017 which, in turn was a deterioration on 2016. This deterioration in safety performance is unacceptable.

On 17 August, the Minerals Council launched the National Day of Safety & Health in Mining 2018 campaign as part of its recommitment to the shared goal of zero harm and ensuring that all employees can go to work in the knowledge that they will return home, every day, unharmed. In the coming month, 66 members of the Minerals Council will be hosting safety and health Days at each of their operations to recommit and reaffirm the industry’s commitment.

Minerals Council CEO, Roger Baxter said: “For us, this recommitment and reaffirmation is much more than the dedication of a single day to health and safety. Inherently, it is about care and respect for people. The ultimate goal of this initiative is to remind each and every company, manager and employee that the safety and health of employees is the uppermost priority for this industry.

“Ensuring the safety and health of all mining employees requires active collaboration between management, employees and regulators. We are honoured today to be joined by Mr David Msiza, Chief Inspector at the DMR, representatives from organised labour and the CEOs of two our member companies in this shared commitment. It is through the collective efforts of the safety and health tripartite partners that safety performance improved substantially since the dawn of democracy until 2016.

“We recognise that much more still needs to be done and the Minerals Council and its members acknowledge our responsibility to do all we can to achieve our shared goal of Zero Harm. We ask all industry stakeholders to share in our commitment to safety and health, first, always and everyday.”